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I am quite pleased with the way it has turned out although sometimes to photos can show things better than the orignal! I don't think I am going to get much done in the next couple of weeks but when I do I will put another photo up regards Paul R

Are these C and L points? By the look of the interlaced sleepers I would say not! Paul R

I'll put the Claude on the next board finished Paul R

I have just finished ballasting the second board. The photo shows my Connoissuer F5 67217. More progress as we go Paul R

Jonte I have to say that some of this ballast I have had in stock for a number of years and the source now eludes me. However the coarse stuff came from Trinders in Banbury whilst the latest finer ballast was supplied by The Hobby Box in Uckfield. The problem with this stuff is the weight and model shops seem to sell in small quantities only. Trinders sold much bigger bags and at the time I had to visit Banbury regulalry on business which I am sad to say is no longer the case. I think they do advertise in Railway Modeller or at least used to. Paul

The ballasting is certainly rock solid! An alternative I have used in the past is to sieve some cascamite dry over the ballast mix before wetting it. It doesn't need the PVA then but Cascamite is very expensive stuff these days! Paul R

Paul I have a lovely photo of a WD 2-8-0 at Braintree on sugar beet so that should make an appearance and I am contemplating the RoadRailer trials - have to scratch build that lot though. No old kits in O gauge like there is in OO Paul R

This is how we do the ballasting and these are the raw materials. I like to mix in a tub and the basic mix is coarse granite, finer granite with a large sccop of Excamite (cascamite), and two scoops of black powder paint with one burnt umber. The scoops are those that are found in a baby milk tin so relatively small. The cascamite scoop is more akin to a table spoon. Anyhow this is all mixed into the tub and then placed roughly on the section of track to be done. Brushed away from the sleepers, once all is ready the whole lot is sprayed with Mr Muscle Shower Shine (other brands are available!). The reason I use this is that it contains some form of agent that breaks down the surface tension. You could use a sprayer with some fairy liquid in as an alternative. The track is liberally wetted and this will cause the glue to mix with the ballast and paint. Then I drop diluted PVA from a syringe - this needs to be the consistency of milk until the whole lot is covered.Then I spray a drop more shower shine. Don't worry about getting ballast dust on the sleepers, it will disappear once wet. Once dry the whole lot should be a reasonably dirty ballast. The photos also show the treatment at the end of the board using card. Finally a shot of the finished board which has had the rails cleaned and shows a Heljan 47! Now the job of doing the other boards. I'll hopefully make progress at a much faster rate now Paul Rowlinson

Here are the original photos. These show various items of stock on the layout that had just had the wiring completed.

It's a long time since news of this layout whcih has been in the making over 10 years, has appeared here! Progress is slow due to lack of time and other household jobs that always need doing. So I thought I would reload the original plan and images before posting the latest details. The layout is set on the Braintree branch which has gained a fictitional station at Black Notley which in reality never had one being served from White Notley or Cressing. Because the intermediate stations on the line never had much in the way of an interesting track plans (Cressing had one siding) we need to imagine that Black Notley was a somewhat more important location than it is. I could have planned in a light railway to the Black Notley Hospital - shades of Hellingly in Sussex - and my yet build that as a separate mini layout. The layout should allow a mix of traffic including freight for Crittalls and we are also assumng that the link to Bishops Stortford did not close so we can run bananna trains and diversions whcih will explain away the somewhat questionable variety of motive power! Anyway here is the plan - Photos follow

You could almost be there Paul R

I'd like to do this in O gauge - I have the tram and the 04 diesel and some unmade coaches somewhere the only thing missing is the time! Need to get my Black Notley layout finished first. Great work this well done Paul R